Improving Pre-service Teachers’ Understanding on Special Education through VR
Grace Ko, Ph.D. student, Curriculum & Instruction, the University of Texas at Austin
Kai Osorio, Policy Analyst, San Francisco United School District (SFUSD)
Special education classrooms in California in Interactive VR
Goals:
- To develop an understanding of special education class management tactics for pre-service teachers
- To provide the experience of visiting special education classroom in Virtual Reality (VR) format
- To suggest a new type of professional development/ teacher training material in interactive VR experience
Tools used:
- ThingLink for creating an interactive virtual classroom presentation
- 360-degree camera with a monopod
Background: Tackling Lack of Special Education Training in Teacher Credential Programs with VR
Teacher credential programs for general subject teachers only require one 3-credit course on special education; however, this overview course gives an insufficient understanding in special education and doesn’t give teachers the experience needed to serve students with special needs in the future.
Furthermore, without field experience, it is challenging for teachers to fully understand the characteristics of various behaviors related to students with disabilities and be prepared to interact with the children who are going through difficulties; nevertheless, the situation general education teachers face everyday is growing more and more as the integrated classroom model is becoming popular. Thus, Grace thought it is crucial to find innovative methods for pre-service teachers to have experiences that can lead to enhanced understanding and preparation for integrated classrooms.
Project Idea: Innovating Professional Development with Interactive VR Experience
To find a solution to the problem of lack of experience in serving special education students, Grace wanted to try something innovative. She wanted to bring the pre-service teachers into the special education classrooms through Virtual Reality (VR).
Grace and Kai visited two well-prepared special education classrooms in Northern California to take 360 photos and interview special education teachers. Each component in the classroom, such as Mood Meter, Math Tangibles, Individual Working Stations provided reasoning for a more profound understanding of special education tactics.
In order to create the VR experience, various interactive VR creation platforms were reviewed, and ThingLink was chosen as the platform as it fits their needs to support multiple attractive and interactive features:
- The interface design is simple, modern, and EASY!
- Tour creator to jump to four corners of a classroom environment
- Embed links to lead the teachers to read & watch research-based learning materials
- Variety of interactions to keep teachers focused throughout the tour and to emphasize each component’s idiosyncratic characteristics
- Viewing in various high-end VR headsets to fully enable interactive VR experience
The virtual classrooms are to be tested in a special education course at a university in Northern California this summer. The results of the experiment are going to be shared with ThingLink education blog readers this fall!
Next Steps: Expanding 360 Classrooms to different countries and subjects
During its development stage, the 360 special education classroom was shared with many teachers from different parts of the world. All of them agreed that this would be an innovation to teacher training! What’s more, they requested more 360-classrooms from different parts of the world, including Finland, Australia, China, Singapore, and more!
Connecting educators through the 360 Classrooms blog
To increase accessibility and understanding of the project, Grace and Kai created a blog named 360 Classrooms. However, they figured this space could be used in more exciting ways. It could serve as a community for educators to share their classrooms and chat about their class management tactics.
Suggestions for colleagues: Would you like to join us?
Some teachers also suggested expanding 360 Classroom projects to different types of classrooms: elementary school classrooms for lower and higher grades, art classrooms, school gyms, science labs, and so forth. There are no limits to sharing the classes!
Grace and Kai invite all educators to join this project to share a classroom and be a small inspiration to other educators. If interested, please feel free to contact Grace at eko@utexas.edu and Kai at kaiosorio@gmail.com.
Classrooms of the World 